​Blood for gas: Why Bibi is punishing Gaza

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.

A quick recap is essential. US Secretary of State John
“Bullhorn” Kerry was conducting a sham exercise known as
“peace talks” between Israel and Palestine. As expected,
it failed miserably. Hamas and the PLO in Palestine then formed a
technocratic unity government. Bibi was, predictably, furious.

Then two Palestinians – not Hamas – kidnapped three Israeli
teenager settlers hitchhiking at night near Hebron. One of the
hitchhikers somehow managed to call an Israeli police emergency
number on his mobile. The kidnappers freaked out and shot the
hitchhikers on the spot, dumping their bodies.

Then all of Israel freaked out. For three weeks, tens of
thousands of soldiers were involved in search parties. The media
went berserk – immolating Palestinians in a racist funeral pyre.

There’s wild speculation all across the Arab street this has been
an Israeli false flag. Evidence, though, seems to point to the
10,000-strong Qawasmeh tribe in the Hebron region – which is
known historically to openly antagonize Hamas and attack Israeli
settlers. There’s also the possibility the kidnappers wanted to
use the hitchhikers for an exchange with Palestinian prisoners.

Bibi and Shin Bet military intelligence knew from the start the
three settlers were dead – and who was responsible. But Bibi
simply could not pass up the opportunity to use the incident –
during the frenzied three-week search – as a build-up to go after
Hamas in both West Bank and Gaza, an operation planned way in
advance.

This past Tuesday, the Israeli military spelled it all out:
“We have been instructed by the political echelon to hit
Hamas hard.” And in perfect Newspeak, the operation was
branded a “just war.” (A detailed background to the
conflict can be seen here.)

Israel wants it all

The numbers don’t do justice to the appalling carnage. By Monday,
over northern Gaza, after Israel warned residents to leave the
area to avoid airstrikes, at least 167 people were killed – the majority of them women,
children and elderly civilians, 30 by Israeli rockets – and over
1,000 injured. Two hundred houses, not military installations,
were totally destroyed and over 1,500 houses partially damaged.

Compare it to zero deaths in Israel. An IDF spokesperson
gruesomely boasted that Gaza – a de facto slum/concentration camp
– was being bombed every 4 1/2 minutes.

Each homemade rocket fired by the Palestinians cost less than
$1,000. Meanwhile, a single Israeli Iron Dome missile supposed to
intercept them costs up to $100,000 (without including the
launching and control systems). On top of this, since Thursday a
ground invasion has been dubbed “imminent.”

That Bibi is able to get away with this is all the Arab street –
and most of the Global South – needs to know about America’s
battleship/aircraft carrier in the Middle East. What most people
don’t know about is those 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas,
worth at least $4 billion, discovered 14 years ago off the Gaza
coast.

It’s easy to forget that at the time of Israel’s previous
invasion of Gaza – Operation Cast Lead – gas fields in Palestine
were outright confiscated by Israel. This “operation”
was already an energy war, as Nafeez Ahmed analyzed here.

Then there is the Bigger Picture - the 122 trillion cubic feet of
gas plus the potential 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the Levant
Basin spread over the territorial waters of Israel, Syria,
Lebanon, Cyprus and – of course – Gaza. These waters are as
incandescently disputed as rocks and shoals in the South China
Sea. Needless to say, Tel Aviv wants it all.

Even Tony Blair, the Phantom of the Opera, is involved. As the (failed) Quartet Middle East
envoy, Blair came up with the brilliant plan of
“developing” the Gaza gas fields via an agreement
between British Gas and the Palestinian Authority, totally
excluding Hamas and the people of Gaza.

The way Gaza is kept as a concentration camp, subjected to
non-stop collective punishment, may be revolting enough. But then
it must be added the key economic component: by all available
means Gazans must be prevented from accessing the Marine-1 and
Marine-2 gas fields. These will be gobbled up by Israel. From
every angle, and for all practical purposes, Israel lords over
all Palestinian natural resources – land, water and energy.

So here’s the “secret” of Operation Protect the
Zionists, sorry, Protective Edge: without smashing Hamas, which
controls Gaza, Israel cannot drill off the Gaza coast. For Bibi
as well as the Knesset, the possibility that the Palestinians
could have access to their own gas-generated wealth is an
absolute red line.

And the EU may be on it as well. No one in Brussels will admit
it, but it’s easy to conceive “strategists” regarding
this takeover of Palestinian gas fields opening the door in the
future for the EU being less dependent on Gazprom, and a
substantial importer of (stolen) Israeli gas.

Israel’s Newspeak is old news; after all they are masters of
fooling no one but themselves. Expanding on what Michael Klare has
brilliantly detailed, the new, open-ended, collective punishment
inflicted on Gaza is most of all a blood-for-gas energy war.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.